Dhe five-storey office building of the Angelicoussis group in the Athens district of Kallithea is reminiscent of a sea wave because of its elegantly curved façade. Greece’s leading shipping company is in its element on the seven seas, after all it crosses the oceans every day with 150 giant tankers. At the same time, the company wants to avoid waves and wind of any kind in public. Telephone calls from journalists go unanswered, e-mails go unanswered, and even a personal visit is useless. At the reception, the staff of a private security company will send you away in a friendly but firm manner.
The same applies to the “Union of Greek Shipowners”. Journalist inquiries are undesirable. Greek shipowners “live happily because they live hidden”, as the French proverb says. They have every reason to talk about their achievements: they have the largest tanker fleet in the world, they have a modern and young fleet, and they invested in liquid gas ships at an early stage. They provide well-paid jobs and are involved in training. They also deserve a lot as cultural sponsors.
But since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, they have shown themselves from a side that many find ugly: the Greek shipowners are transporting Russian oil in bulk, because the EU embargo is not to come into force until December 2022 for crude oil and in February 2023 for crude oil products, and that only in the form of a ban on tanker insurance by European insurers. “Russian oil is at the heart of Greek shipowners’ business,” says analyst Maria Bertzeletou, “so they’re holding onto it as long as they can.” Even the calls by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – most recently connected digitally this week at an economic conference near Athens – do not change anything. According to the analysis firm S&P Global, 51 percent of Russian oil was transported by Greek shipowners in the past few weeks, 19 percent by Russian and 6 percent by Chinese tankers.
Massively increased freight rates
When the shipowners are asked about the topic at specialist conferences and cannot avoid it, they say: “The governments set the rules, we follow them,” said Angeliki Frangou, head of Navios Maritime Holdings this week. Evangelos Marinakis, who owns Capital Maritime & Trading Corp – as well as Greek media and two football clubs – countered that “our countries are in dire need of oil and thank God we are there to provide stability”. He called on politicians to take “radical steps” to end the war. “We have record prices for oil and gas. Our economies won’t be able to do that much longer,” Marinakis said.
The Greek shipowners, on the other hand, manage this very well; they earn a lot from the massively increased freight rates. A smaller ship could earn $1.6 million to transport a cargo of Siberian pipeline oil from Russia’s Kozmino crude oil terminal east of Vladivostok to China – three times what it was before the war, ship brokers told Bloomberg. According to information from February, some providers such as Angelicoussis are forgoing these deals because they fear damage to their reputation; others such as Greek shipowners Avin International Ltd. and Estoril Navigation Ltd. to do with. Avin is owned by one of the largest industrial groups in Greece, the family company Vardinogiannis, which is mainly active in the refining business.
